The young Egyptian made international waves last
year when his New York University thesis film YOMEDDINE
was selected for the main competition
at Cannes, one of the rare times that a first-time
feature has competed for the Palme d’Or. Inspired
by a short documentary he made ten years before
as an undergraduate in Cairo about a local leper
colony, the subsequent feature won the Francois
Chalais Prize in Cannes, was picked up for North
American distribution by Strand Releasing and had
its Middle Eastern premiere at El Gouna.